


If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it

by injo



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military Hospital, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Andrew is an injured soldier, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Neil is a military nurse, POV Andrew Minyard, Probably Not Medically Accurate, Trope Inversion, they fall in love, you know the drill by now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injo/pseuds/injo
Summary: ‘Holy shit. You get it.’****AU where Andrew is an injured soldier and Neil is his nurse. Also, there are soulmarks.





	If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yourwritersblock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yourwritersblock/gifts).



> For Kayla <333
> 
> Title inspired by a Hamilton lyric

The sunlight fell in iridescent shafts over Andrew’s bed, the feel of warmth a physical weight against his skin as he lay and inhaled a smell a combination of disinfectant and festering sickness. Hospital, then.

He looked around the room and noted the lack of personal touches with a detached air. The windows to his right, his bed elevated and in the centre with a view to the television mounted upon the wall. The chiming of a clock on the wall indicated it was nearly noon, and that two weeks had passed since he could last remember anything. A coma from a head injury, maybe?

Andrew gingerly raised his hands to check his head for bandages, and only encountered unpleasantly greasy strands of hair, different from his usual standardised buzzcut. He started to unbutton his hospital gown, when his arm with his soulmark of a black key hidden by his armbands started prickling with the burning itch of a tattoo gun. He frowned. That was new. Perhaps a side effect of the grey-white bandages wrapped securely around his midsection? His hazy head seemed to suggest they had him on the good painkillers, though.

‘Oh, you’re awake. Private Minyard, is it?’

An auburn haired man in grey scrubs came into the room, his shoes obscenely squeaky against the linoleum floor. Andrew pulled his hospital gown back over his shoulder.

‘Doesn’t it –‘ Andrew broke off into coughs. The man raised a glass of water with a straw to Andrew’s lips, waiting with a click-squeak tap of his shoes against the floor for him to finish.

‘Doesn’t it say my name on my chart?’ Andrew repeated.

The man rolled his eyes.

‘Why do I always get the rude ones?’

‘Maybe it’s because you’re not so great on the manners front yourself. You haven’t told me who you are or where I am, what kind of a shitty bedside manner is that?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll do my whole spiel. I’m Nurse Neil Josten, I’ll be taking over from Nurse Matt Boyd, your previous main care provider, now that you’re awake for however long you’re with us. You’ve been in a medically induced coma for two weeks now, after we removed a bullet from your midsection. Do you remember getting shot?’

Impressions of a dust storm and poor visibility, overlaid with the smell of gunpowder and the hoarse shouts of his commanding officer over the headset flashed through Andrew’s head. He nodded.

‘We have you on some serious painkillers so you shouldn’t be able to feel much right now, let me know if anything hurts more than a 7 out of 10 and I’ll speak to the doctor about getting your dosage upped.’

Andrew thought briefly of mentioning the scratching at his arm and then discarded the idea, there was no way it was above a 4 on the pain scale. 

‘Do you have any questions?’

‘How much time will it take for me to heal and leave?’

‘Sick of me already, soldier?’ Neil replied with a glint in his eye, his lips upturning in a lazy grin as he started checking the machines around Andrew.

‘To answer your question, the doctors don’t know for certain yet. You’ll have to wait for them to give you the all clear before you leave so we can minimise the chance of infection.’

Andrew exhaled slowly. Neil caught his eyes, and his smile grew softer.

‘You’ll feel better in no time.’

****

It had been a long time. Two more weeks had passed and Andrew was starting to go slightly stir crazy in his room, which now felt more like his cell from juvie than a space in a medical facility.

Aaron was busy with his final exams in medical school and he had insisted on Nicky not coming all the way from Germany to play dutiful relative at his bedside, but the more time passed gazing listlessly at books or reruns of Friends, the more tension grew in Andrew’s shoulders.

Living within the crowded confines of dorms constantly on top of thirty other soldiers in training had changed his naturally solitary ways, and the too quiet room seemed to be growing more and more detached from the real world as time passed.

‘Andrew, how’s it going?’

Neil walked in in a bustle of noise, his grey scrubs softening the lines of the scars on his face and arms, where he wore a grey armband over his wrist, presumably covering his soulmark. Soulmarks had been deeply private things, once upon a time, but in the age of camera phones everyone seemed to share their mark online in the hope of meeting ‘the one’.

Andrew lifted an eyebrow in response.

‘Ah, one of your chatty days today, is it?’

‘Maybe I’d chat if you asked me a question worth responding to.’

Neil stopped whatever he was doing with the machines and turned to Andrew, head tilting to the side.

‘What would you consider a worthy question?’

‘Something not boring.’

‘Did that one count?’

‘The question you just asked?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It did, because it invited a response that went beyond just reciting an empty platitude.’

Neil furrowed his brows and finished his checks of the machine, frowning a little in thought the entire time.

‘Okay, I’ll back off if this is too personal. But, what’s the story behind the armband?’

‘That’s not a boring question.’

‘But you won’t answer?’

‘I’ll answer if you tell me the story behind yours. A truth for a truth.’

Neil met his eyes once again, before looking away.

‘Fine, a truth for a truth.’

Andrew settled back into his cushions, thinking for a minute before beginning to speak.

‘My twin brother and I do not get along. My cousin, who is also my legal guardian, lives in a different continent from me. I was shuffled around foster homes since I was born. Love is not part of my life, let alone love that has been forced upon me by a universe that doesn’t seem to give a shit when I’m getting shot at. Why should I trust it to tell me who I should spend the rest of my life with?’

Andrew heard Neil’s breath catching in his throat.

‘Holy shit. You get it.’

****

Months later, when Neil took his armband off to shower and Andrew joined him, the matching keys on their arms were revealed. It changed nothing, because ultimately, it wasn’t the universe who had chosen them for each other. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to let me know what you think <3


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